Joe Six-Pack in OH

Gabe Kramer, the S.E.I.U.’s chief of staff in Columbus, told me, “You talk to people about the issues and the issues resonate. But what you hear people talking about on the street and on TV and radio is the other things. Is Obama like us? Does Obama share our experience of the world? Which is not the same thing as racism, but overlaps with it.” Obama, Kramer added, is “very good at talking to professionals—people who care about policy—and comes across as judicious, careful, thoughtful. But he has a harder time talking about them in a way working-class white Ohioans can relate to.”